Information about a company, a company's competitors, suppliers, customers and the like is very helpful in understanding and analyzing that company. This information, which is described herein as a company's “corporate information,” is sought by researchers, analysts, traders, and others.
Investigating corporate information is not easy, however. There are tools that permit investigation into information about company, but do not readily make available information about a company's competitors, suppliers, customers and the like (“corporate relationships.”) Some limited corporate relationship tools do exist, however, those tools often concern themselves primarily with competitive relationships, also known as “horizontal” relationships. For example, an investor may be able to determine where a company ranks within its industry on a number of measures, such as outstanding debt, return on equity, etc. Moreover, the available tools use traditional industry or sector classification, which groups companies largely in terms of the similarity of their products or services. However, simply understanding these horizontal relationships, even within similar industries or sectors, does not provide other relationship information that may be at least as valuable. For example, information about suppliers and/or customers (also known as “vertical” relationships) might reveal useful information such as, for example, over much dependence on a single customer. There are few, if any tools permitting thus horizontal and vertical relationship or “value chain.”
Moreover, corporate relationship information must be quickly accessed when considering investment decisions. Trading stocks, bonds, etc. requires rapid decision-making. Corporate relationship information, to be useful, must be available as soon as desired. Additionally, any such information must also be understandable, that is, presented in a way so as to help rapid assimilation and understanding of the information. (See e.g., Tufte, Edward, Visual Explanations: “When principles of design replicate principles of thought, the act of arranging information becomes an act of insight.” 9, Graphics Press, 1997]
Even if corporate information and corporate relationship information tools exist, those tools do not adequately provide for rapid and useable information. For example, a financial institution might have reams of corporate information and corporate relationship information stored internally, in enterprise databases, as well as in other places, however, accessing and displaying such information may not be easily done, if at all. Moreover, once such information is accessed, it is usually available only in a static format, that is, in charts, graphs, and the like.
The general lack of availability, rapidity and understandability of corporate relationship information also limits creation of financial products. For example, presently financial products exist that divide industries into segments based on common business, such as telecommunications, semiconductors, etc. However, the financial markets constantly strive to create new financial products. If corporate relationship information was easily understandable and rapidly available, new financial products based on that information could be created, such as indexes, derivatives, etc.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture for providing corporate relationship information.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture for analyzing corporate and corporate relationship information.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture for visualizing corporate and corporate relationship information.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture for creating financial products based on corporate and corporate relationship information.